This invention relates to disk drives generally and more specifically to the initialization of disk drives, including disk drives with spindle motors.
Disk drives are well known in computer-related technology. One well-known type includes hard disk drives that use a rigid spinning magnetic recording medium and associated read/write head. Another type includes optical disk drives that use a spinning (rotating) optical recording medium and a corresponding optical (laser diode) read/write head. This disclosure relates to both types generally although most of the description is directed towards a magnetic (hard) disk drive.
In general for disk drives, the disk takes some time for initialization and spin-up to a desired operational speed, and associated delays may adversely affect performance depending on the requirements of the operational setting.
In the consumer electronic field, for example, MP3 music players typically include disk drives that are likely to shut down frequently in order to preserve battery power. Typically, songs are stored as files on the disk drive. When any one song is being played, the corresponding file is downloaded into a semiconductor memory buffer for the actual playing, and then the disk drive shuts down. When a user wants to listen to a new song that is not in the memory buffer, that song must be downloaded to the memory from the disk drive which must be started up. The resulting lag (e.g., perhaps a second or more), which is largely due to getting the spindle motor up to the operational speed, can be annoying to users.
These issues affect a number of technology areas where disk drives are employed for data storage and retrieval. In addition to MP3 players, applications for disk drives include a number of consumer devices including high definition television (HDTV), vehicle control systems, cell phones, set top boxes, and media players generally. Time delays can degrade performance in all these applications to varying degrees.
Thus, there is a need for improved initialization and control of disk drives and related media.